Posts By: Tom Schramski

In a pivotal scene in the thriller, World War Z, the Mossad Director, Jurgan Wormbraun, tells Brad Pitt that a key to their success was having a unique person in their organization, the 10th man. As he noted, “It’s the duty of the 10th man to disagree.” While few organization experience anything as cataclysmic as… Read more

In the spirit of the recent AzBL presentation by the representatives of Goodwill International & Goodwill of Central Arizona, I can’t help thinking of their success story compared to the suffering of many nonprofits that are constantly at death’s doorstep. It may be that there are too many charitable causes competing for donations in our… Read more

The myth is as follows: once we have increased our self-esteem then we are in the position where we can face the emotional and physical challenges of a potential failure. The problem with this myth: it assumes that failure is the negative event and it’s not – most failure provides necessary learning for greater future… Read more

We have just celebrated one of the most important events in our history – the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The document itself is still revered by people and cultures from every part of our planet because of the simple, clear message that we all have inalienable individual rights. While we sometimes debate the… Read more

The culture of the domestique in professional cycling is a strong one. The very best champions and their teams know that their ultimate success depends on having a cadre of riders who can support their lead rider to cross the finish line first. What domestiques provide may be instructive to each of us in our… Read more

When Tom Engler, CEO of Discount Tire, told us the story of his AzBL Leadership Award-winning company it was impressive: nearly 17,000 employees, 900 plus stores in 28 states in the US, almost $5 billion revenue and a turnover rate of less than 10% of their full-time employees. The last statistic was the one he… Read more

As defined in Wikipedia “defense in depth” “is an information assurance concept in which multiple layers of security controls are placed throughout an IT system…to provide redundancy in the event a security control fails…” Our presenter on April 3rd, Brandon Johnson, CIO for Resources Global Professionals, talked at length about how this concept is employed… Read more

Earlier this week Donna Hrinak, President of Boeing Brazil and former US Ambassador to Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic, gave a remarkable presentation to the membership of AzBL. It was remarkable because of the rarely experienced perspective of “lessons learned” from global executive positions in both private and public marketplaces. While there are… Read more

Whether considering the sale of your business or moving on to a new career path, there are inevitable signs that the time is right. You may have some constraints (e.g. financial) but the signs don’t lie. Here are a few that present themselves even if you don’t appreciate it. You have extricated yourself so much… Read more

As Hyrum Smith, Co-Founder of Franklin Covey, shared with over 100 AzBL attendees on January 8th, the basic principles of human productivity have not changed for 6000 years. That’s a long time. The genius is in how you put all the “old stuff” together for the 21st Century. Hyrum attributed 8 ingredients for contemporary and… Read more